Thursday, July 7, 2016

Throughout my teaching career I have seen so many students
enter my high school math classes with a firm belief in their ability (or lack
thereof) to do math. I can’t count the
number of parents who have sat down at conferences and opened with, “Well, I
wasn’t any good at math, so it makes sense my child struggles.” I have always been saddened by this attitude
and felt the negative self-fulfilling prophecy was undermining students’ learning. I tried in vague and individual ways to
address this, but never took it to a formalized, systematic level to maximize
the impact.

I have also always struggled with the apathy many students
feel toward mathematics. It is often
something “to get through” on their way to something bigger and better. I think part of this is how students have
felt about mathematics, but I also believe it is about the disconnect of
classroom mathematics to the real world.
While I have always felt my mathematical Achilles heel is practical
application, I know my students need it both to engage deeply with the content
and to improve their attitudes and overall learning. Again, I wanted to make changes, but never
felt successful in my attempts.

After reading Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of
Success (2007), I found myself nodding a lot and agreeing with her
research. I had always felt many of her
findings, but never really articulated them.
However, I still didn’t really see the immediate application to my math
concerns. I was just stronger in my
beliefs but no closer to a significant change in my classroom. However, when I read Jo Boaler’s Mathematical Mindsets (2016), I began to
see ways to change my instruction to be explicit and systematic about improving
my students’ learning and attitudes about mathematics.

One key moment for me was when Boaler described how math is
perceived as a performance subject with right and wrong answers. This was a stop-point for me-it made so much
sense to me but I had never thought of math in that way. Yet, I believe this perception is the key to
addressing both of my concerns. If I can
turn math back into a collaborative, logical, inquiry experience with multiple
paths to solutions, I might be able to change some of my students’ minds and
re-open doors for their future that they felt were closed because they “weren’t
any good in math.”

This was the moment where I finally saw some tangible ideas
that showed me how the changes I wanted to make might look and gave me some
ideas how those changes could truly impact learning. This is where my genius hour project finally
took shape. I hope to create inquiry
tasks for each unit in order to cultivate more positive attitudes about
mathematics and deepen the learning of the concepts. I have several articles and research studies
to read on deep learning that I hope will also give me ideas and insight into
how to improve my instruction.

I still worry about my own lack of knowledge with real world
applications, but I am willing to set that aside to move forward. I have decided that I have been willing to
incorporate technologies that I didn’t fully feel comfortable with and learned
along with the students, so this will be the same. I can’t ask my students to be uncomfortable
and take risks if I am not willing to do so myself and model it openly. Standford University’s YouCubed.com will be one source I turn to
for ideas, as well as the wealth of teaching ideas available on edutopia.org.

The additional element in all this research and change is a
new look at grading and assessment. After attending the three day FIRST institute
conference this summer which focused on grading and assessment, I believe we
have to look different at how, when, and why we assess kids. Boaler also addresses this assessment issue
as being overwhelmingly negative and not motivating for most students. Our math department has made some change in
assessment by moving to mastery with retesting options and clearly identified
standards, yet students still equate the scale scores with a letter grade. I hope to work with my department on ways to
continue to move away from scores which demotivate and move toward constructive
feedback. I could envision a system
where students track their own progress through the objectives and control
their own paths to learning. After a
summative exam, I want students to reflect on their learning process and
progress. I think so many of our
students consider themselves powerless in education-they have fixed mindsets
about what they can do (and have done) to improve their learning. If they are empowered to choose learning
paths on their own, they may begin to see their own success as a direct outcome. However, I need to always be sure to
emphasize growth and progress or this will all just be another grade chase with
no real change beyond some superficial elements.

I am still struggling with the exact “product” of my genius hour project. I have two or three different ideas
that I want to implement, so I need to decide if I am going to phase in the
changes (measuring success as I go) or if I am going to make a major,
multi-faceted change. As I start to work
out the actual details, I think the best plan will appear. I also will be sitting down with my
department to talk about what they plan to do in response to Boaler’s book as
we read it at as a summer book study. We
may choose a department approach that will address some of my ideas which will
improve impact both in scope and design (more heads are better than 1!)

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Creating an engaging classroom and motivating students are
top concerns for most educators. They
are topics of blogs, PD sessions, books, and staff lunch tables. My question has always been what happens
between those beautiful elementary years when students are curious and excited
to learn and my high school classroom where compliance, apathy, and grade
chasing rule the day?

I believe a few things are at play. One-we have “taught” students who is “good”
at school and who isn’t. The current
system values such a narrow band of learning that by high school, many students
are disenfranchised and have a fixed mindset about what they can and cannot
do. Two-our curriculum and assessments
are often disengaged from any tangible, real application or skill students see
as relevant.

There are likely many other factors, but I think we could
address, system-wide, these two factors, dramatic changes would be seen. If students were taught and coached with
growth mindset philosophies, given opportunities to have successful failure and
learn through a variety of paths, by high school we might see more resilient,
open-minded learners, ready for the challenging course work of the 21st
century. We could foster the types of
critical thinking we all say we want in our classes but are frustrated when it
doesn’t happen. We could move from
(re)teaching basics (which are important) and repetitive topics to deeper
thinking, application, critical tasks in each content area. If we can change the way we assess students
and report on those assessments, I think we will be one giant leap forward in
changing our students’ perceptions and experiences in school.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a purist in many ways. I think all students should be exposed to
some ideas like Shakespeare, economics, mathematics, and chemistry. I think self-direction and autonomy are
great, but if you have parented a toddler, you know that kids like what is familiar. If left to their own devices, chicken nuggets
would be the main stay of most toddlers’ diets.
As parents, it is our obligation to expose our children to new
experiences, even when they don’t like it or think they want it. Often, that one forced bite of something new
(which they would not do willingly) becomes next week’s favorite food. Maybe it’s the 12th bite that gets
them, or maybe they never acquire a taste for broccoli, but the point is we
must push them beyond their comfort zone.
Put them on the bike, promise to hold on, knowing we will break that
promise for their own good.

I think education is the same. We should absolutely honor and encourage
students’ interests and talents, but we also have an obligation to open new
doors to them, introduce them to new skills and topics, even if they might not “willingly”
choose them. I had no idea as a HS
student that I would end up as a teacher.
I took classes I liked and did well in because it made me feel good
about myself and steered clear (when I could) of those that I didn’t like and
struggled with because who likes that feeling?
I think this is part of our disengagement problem, students and our
system have created fixed mindsets and roles for students which have closed
doors. We do not encourage curiosity and
open-mindedness, risk-taking and exploration.
Will anyone every TRULY need Shakespeare? (No, unless you are English teacher J). Does that mean reading his work is an archaic
tradition which has no merit in today’s world?
No. Yet, some students will
approach it with the mindset “I won’t ever need this.” We need to change both the way we teach these
concepts and the attitudes students bring to the content. We don’t know what kids will or won’t need in
their future because the world is changing too rapidly. We need to foster a love of learning because
we do know they will have to be able to keep up with rapid change. We need to foster critical thinking because in
a world of too much information, they will need to be able to filter and sort
through the rubbish to find the golden nuggets.
We need to cultivate open-mindedness to look beyond the familiar and
comfortable because that is where the true answers for our world’s problems are
going to be found.